The Ubiquitous Mr Elric
by Ariadne The Alchemist
Summary: Post Series. Alphonse struggles with the fact that time has gone on without him, that the one he loves is gone. Elricest, mild shota.


Hallo!

This is another one of my late-night muses acting up, it all started a while back when I learned the word "ubiquotous." I thought, wouldn't be cool to do a fic with that word? And so, this was created. I'm pretty happy with this one actually... I wanted to write pure angst, but this turned out a tad bizzare, and somehow morphed into fluff at the end. (Sighs.) But still, enjoy.

Warnings: There is reference to mild shota in this, but nothing graphic. Spoilers for the end of the series and semi-spoilers for the movie.

Ubiquitous: Existing everywhere.

* * *

Red. 

The sweet smell of blood...

The tearing of flesh.

A beginning so perfect, like it was painted into a canvas.

Endlessness.

And then I wake up.

* * *

"So...you remember...nothing." 

"_Nothing?" _Winry blurted, "I mean, nothing? I don't believe it! How could you remember nothing after...after-!"

"Winry, please." Aunt Pinako's voice was gruff and thick, mimicking the smoke that seemed to always spiral her head.

"S-sorry, I mean, I'm sorry, it's just such a, you know..."

"Why don't you get Izumi. I'm sure she'll want to see him too."

"Yes, yes...of course."

The shutting of a door, even something so simple...it feels...

"She's just upset." It was a sad excuse, I've heard this performance too many times before. Or have I...?

A door opens. Whispering... They where talking about something dark, obviously, something they didn't think was fit for my ears. Yes yes, Alphonse's poor little ears…

"-still doesn't remember anything. After that night, it's just a blank space."

"Not even a shadow… It's fascinating, but is _he_ alright?"

"Well, physically yes but...his mind is, I guess, a little confused. He's acting strange, like he simply looks right through you...no no, he looks at you and he damn well see's you, it's just that he makes it seem like you don't exist. He's different from before."

"And...?"

A single word. Amazing, a secret they were trying so hard to keep, they only had to suggest it's meaning to know. But I knew, oh I _knew_, exactly what they were conspiring about.

"...we still haven't found him."

My eyes opened and I beheld fire, my eyes ablaze in red. Anger. My body convulsed inward and lashed out, making me fall to the floor. Worried cries, rough hands grabbing and holding me down, while I was shrieking obscenities at the top of my voice. Obviously, I wasn't in a good state of mind yet.

"Alphonse! Alphonse! Calm down, Alphonse…"

Upon hearing my name, whispered so sweetly, so wonderfully, like somebody had done for me once...

I became limp and lost all sense of being awoken.

* * *

They were right about one thing, at least, my memory…is practically nonexistent. Knocked out like breath upon the tongue, there was no point in trying to find it, it was gone. 

One moment I'm at our home, hands swarming around me like pesky insects, then suddenly I awake to a grand theatre with a ceiling that must have been able to kiss the sky. One moment, and Brother is grabbing out for me, then he is gone, nothing there save a pool of warm blood. The only thing that seemed consistent, actually, was the circles of chalk etched into the ground.

So upon awakening to this chalk and heaven and blood, my first thoughts were… where is my Brother? Where is our Mother? Where am I? Did the transmutation work? Where is…where is Brother? Where are my clothes?

I shriveled into a ball and clutched my arms to my naked breast, shivering and self-conscience despite the absent of another being.

How did I get here?

It was some time later that they found me, by that time my mind was screaming and confused. When they told me four years had passed, four memory less years, I heard it and accepted it. When they told me Mom was gone, still gone, I heard it and accepted it.

When they told me Brother was missing, I flung myself to the floor and wept like a child.

* * *

"Where is…my Brother?" 

"Where is my Brother?"

"Where is he?"

I babbled these words nonsensical to every pair of eyes I found. Sometimes they weren't even real, just tricks of the mind, sometimes I even asked the phantoms that visit one in his sleep, but they offered no explanation either. I could neither trust the day from night.

Search after search for him, failure after failure, and I not able to move from my bed.

Time spiraled in front of me like a drunken carnival, lights dancing in and out. A fever, it was whispered, but I think it was just loss. I am deranged and sick because I now have no one.

One time, Winry creeps in, in the darkness of the night. She looks over my dead figure and sorrow melts in her eyes. She reaches down and pets a smooth, feminine hand on my hair. A simple act, it was kindly meant but…it brings…it brings…

"_Hey, wake up you lazy oaf! Yeesh Al, your hair's all messy, let me fix it…"_

I leapt up and smashed my hand across her face. Nobody came near me for a week.

* * *

I want my Brother back. 

It such a basic want that sometimes I laugh at it, in spite of myself. I say it in my mind and am ashamed, look at me, crying out like a little baby when he can't find what he's looking for. But this thing I've lost, is _so_ precious, so precious…

So I laugh and choke on my sorrow in between, and when I am strong enough I start to search. I searched and found the burnt remains of our home, I searched and found the record of Brother being a dog of the State, I searched and found that so much had happened in those four, short, memory less years…

But I search and don't find what I'm looking for. Eventually, I have to give up. There was no where left to look… I spiraled down once more.

Izumi pulls me aside one day and stuffs a worn photo into my hand.

"Your Brother," she says gruffly, then walks away again.

I unfold it carefully and gaze at the man before me, yes I said _man._

Up until this point I had been searching for a child, the young bright-eyed boy only a year my senior, for that is the way I remember him. But this adult, with long hair and sad eyes before me, this is what my Brother has become? This pitiful God? This divine Devil?

I look upon his face and I hate him, a searing hatred that banishes my feeling. I hate him for leaving me behind, for abandoning me, for being able to remember what I cannot. This imposter smirking in my face is not my Brother. Because…my real Brother would never leave me like this…right…?

From that day I stopped hoping. In my mind, he was already dead.

* * *

So by the day I despise him, much to the shock and horror of those around me, "He's not right in the head," they excuse. They're probably right, but that doesn't change my mind. 

But now, in the night, I always dream of Brother, not that façade in the photograph, my beautiful and youthful Brother who loved me and would die before he disappeared.

These dreams were my memories, I know that now, of when I was still a blossoming child growing up in our town. I remember, yes I _remember,_ our Mother who played with us and taught us, who sang to us when we slept and secretly slipped us sweet things at dinner. Who had the patience of a hundred and never raised her voice at us, not once.

Yes, Mother was nice to remember, but I didn't dream of her the most.

With the moon, most of the time, I remembered boiling summers with my Brother, tossing off clothing and leaping headfirst into the river, letting it carry us down for miles. Apple-green ice cream melting in our hands and racing to eat it before it dripped onto our clothes. Kicking off blankets and carrying pillows to the rooftop to watch the stars evaporate with the heat. The summer changing to fall, then to winter.

I remembered dragging feet through the snow and pelting ice chunks at each other, Brother picking me up and dusting off the powder, playfully kissing me behind the trees. Building forts a mile high, our secret places no one could invade but us. Catching priceless snowflakes on our tongues…

I remembered the...nights, as well. We would push our two, tiny beds together and pull the covers over our heads, letting the blankets suffocate the air around us. Brother would cradle me to his chest like a baby, sweetly whisper my name, and we would just _be._

I was a little scared when he started giving me real kisses, the serious grown-up kind of kisses, the aura of forbidden nagging the back of my head. But I forgot it almost too quickly. My Brother cared so much for me, and I adored him back, so what was wrong about it? I loved his attention, his holding me to him, our shaking, roaming hands touching each other so innocently and gentle until we finally slept. He was safe, and so careful not to frighten me, it was…perfect.

Mother never knew about it…either…

But, of course, that Brother I once knew was gone, dead in my mind. Pity…

So in those precious nights of memory I let him fill all around me, everywhere at once until I drown.

* * *

"What is the meaning of this!" Aunt Pinako demanded, holding the crumpled photograph in her fist, "Why did I find _this_ in the garbage can! Huh, Alphonse?" 

"I don't want it."

"Why! Why are you doing this to us Al? At first all you could think about was finding your Brother, but now it seems you couldn't be happier that he's gone! What kind of person are you?"

"_He_ abandoned _me_, by the way. Don't get all righteous on me."

Her face reddened. "You're just a selfish little brat now, aren't you? Your Brother loved you more than anything, he still does! And you…you! Did you ever stop to think that maybe he left because he had no choice! That maybe he left so that _you_ could live?"

I roughly sat up and went away. "I'm not done talking to you! Alphonse!"

I slammed the door behind me.

Lying witch, how did I know he loved me as she said he did? As much as when we were children? Those memory less years, did he care about me at all?

No, he didn't! Was my conclusion. The only thing I have to remember him now is his absence. The only thing that would change my mind is if he told it to my face.

He's the one that's selfish…

* * *

Three more days went by, and I talked with no one. Maybe they've finally given up, just like me.

* * *

_I am…dreaming._

This was a dream, a strange, strange dream. I looked down to my hands which had become huge metal gauntlets, my entire being, so heavy. So old and large, like an entire universe, but that was silly, wasn't it? I couldn't move either, so I sat there patiently, waiting for the scene to unfurl.

Then, suddenly, Brother was before me, smiling. I'm startled, for he has aged, looking…like the adult he was in the picture. I wanted to yell at him, but my voice was silent.

He grins and lazily flops down in my lap, stretching, his long hair dripping wet from water and a towel around his shoulders.

"Damn showers, couldn't get any hot water… What's up with you? You haven't said two words since we got here. Do you miss home?"

I was baffled, and found my voice. "You…left me…" I accused.

He frowns. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

He wraps his arms around my neck and laughs.

"C'mon Al, I didn't leave you! I'm right here, see!"

I woke up. That was no dream…

I staggered up into the night and ran for the door, flinging it open loudly. I blindly dashed into the basement where Winry and Aunty were working tirelessly on a new project, and both jumped when I ran through the entrance.

"Al! What are you doing here?" Aunty demanded, but I don't listen. I run to Winry and grab her, feeling her body jump, then bury my head to her stomach and cry.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I'm sorry…I miss him, Winry, I miss him so much! I'm sorry…"

Both look at me, bewildered, it is Winry her finds herself first. "Oh Al…" she says gently, and rocked me in her arms, "We miss him too…" All was forgiven.

I'm still not sure who exactly I was crying out to, them? For forgiveness at my harsh words and actions, forgiveness for being selfish?

Or maybe, maybe, it was for Brother, pleading out to him wherever he was, if he could hear me. For now, in my mind, he was finally alive.

* * *

_Brother…you did love me, didn't you? Right up…until the end._

_

* * *

_

_Two years later._

"Alphonse! Hey, Rose is here! Put on your jacket and come outside!"

"Coming!" I called, pushing the hair from my face. Winry teased me about how long my hair had gotten, saying I was just copying Brother. I like it like this, even if it is a pain sometimes.

I stumbled into the closet and groped around for my coat, grumbling about how many outfits of Winry's were in here that I never saw her wearing. It must've gotten pushed to the back, I pulled the clothes aside and ventured even deeper.

Grumbling, I moved aside boxes and junk from off the floor, how long has it been since this was cleaned? A particularly dusty item fills my noise and I sneeze, I shoved away another article in annoyance and was about to…

Hn? What was this?

I uncovered a dusty cloak, old and worn, but still a violent shade of a beautiful red. I ran my hand over it and marveled at it's…familiarity. The smell of nostalgia, the picture…?

I carefully unravel it like a priceless object and bring it from the closet. It's heavy, and warm, draping over my arms like a thick blanket. Maybe I'll try it on, just for fun…

My arms go through it almost effortlessly, and I stand to admire myself.

It fits perfectly.

* * *

There you have it. I love learning new words... 

Cheers, ATA.


End file.
